A LITTLE MORE ELABORATION ON HOME AT IGN, COOL STUFF!!!
GDC 2007: Harrison's Home
Find out what's free and how you can make your own unique skyline.
by
Hilary Goldstein
March 8, 2007 - Phil Harrison put Microsoft on notice when he introduced
Home, Sony's upcoming online community service. Borrowing from Nintendo's Miis and Microsoft's achievements, Sony is offering a virtual world as the new interface for the PS3. Your home is going to be where your heart is, Harrison hopes. Though Harrison
toured Home's functionality in his GDC keynote speechhttp://media.ps3.ign.com/articles/771/771268/vids_1.html, he gave further details to a select group of bloggers at a low-key Sony event.
Currently, 500,000 PS3 owners in North American have registered for the PlayStation Network, about 50% of the current U.S. installed base. After Home launches this fall, Harrison believes the number of registered online users will increase significantly. Though he admits "it's not going to be for everybody," Harrison can't see any reason why 100% of PS3 owners won't mess around with Home in some capacity.
Home is meant to extend the gameplay cycle and keep gamers from trading in games at local retailers. Once a game is in the used bins, publishers and developers stop making money. But with Home, gamers unlock new items for their house and character based partly on the titles they play. One thing that Sony can't yet announce, but is looking into, is the possibility of having your Home avatar appear in the retail versions of games. "We've got so much cool stuff to share with you," Harrison promised, holding back additional functionality in Home that was not shown during his GDC presentation.
Since the big reveal, fans and members of the media have repeatedly compared Home to the PC social experiment Second Life. Harrison called such comparisons "way over-simplifying both" Home and Second Life. While the two do have characters walking around a 3D world, Harrison believes the similarities end there. Second Life is almost exclusively driven by user-created content, while Home is an entertainment-focused environment in which almost everything is provided by Sony or third party supporters.
Another big difference is that Second Life is rampant with cheaters, sexual predators and creepy people like yourself. Home adheres to Sony's parental controls. There are several blockers that can be switched on to keep people safe from abusive gamers. In fact, you can mute anyone in Home or choose not to see their character at all. And since there is not physical interaction between characters (sorry pervs), there's no reason anyone should be able to bug you for longer than it takes to hit a button on the Sixaxis controller. Community moderators are also being hired to roam the halls and make sure gamers play nice with one another.
Beyond abuse, a common concern has been the server size of Home. While no one at Sony is giving exact numbers, there is a hardcap limit of how many can be on a server at a given time. The overflow simply spills into the next server. And yes, there is a plan for intelligent grouping so that friends stay together on the same server.
Everything in Home sounds pretty damn cool, but it's hard to believe Sony can offer all of this and continue its model of having its Network be free of charge. Well, believe in miracles, because you can enjoy Home for free. Granted, selling premium content will be part of Home's business model (as will advertising), you do get quite a bit for free.
Once you download Home this fall, you have free access to all of the public spaces, your own character, some accessories, furniture and your own apartment. Other items, including additional clothing, are unlocked via premium content, offered free as advertising by third parties and earned by playing PS3 games. Pricing is not something Sony is ready to discuss, but Harrison said, "We have given it a lot of thought."
One cool way to upgrade your pad is by customizing the view out your window. Everyone's house has "the perfect view" so that no one is stuck looking down into an alley. However, there will be different options for what is outside your window. You may want to look out over a lake, for example. To make your lake view different than others, Sony plans to offer some extras to place in the background. You could put a boat floating out by the lake or perhaps have a flock of birds fly by in the horizon. So while many people will have the same base view from their apartment window, each can have its own distinct flare.
If none of this sounds appealing, fear not. Just about everything you can do in Home can also be done through the cross media bar. It just won't look as cool.